Chapter 150: Go Open a Mountain
Although the little girl in the red cotton-padded jacket showed a brief moment of discouragement, she was Li Baoping after all, and soon she was brimming with fighting spirit again. She stealthily moved her feet, sneaking around from the tall woman's left side, circling behind her, and then to her right side, examining her clothes and the huge lotus leaf. Li Baoping still thought it was beautiful, truly beautiful.
Having heard Cui Chan's cursing and the old man's scolding, Chen Ping'an had figured out some implications, but he still didn't dare believe it. He swallowed his saliva and asked the tall woman in a low voice, "This old gentleman is Teacher Qi's teacher? That so-called Literary Sage? A great sage of the Confucian school?"
No wonder this journey had been so turbulent. They had encountered A Liang with his bamboo hat, the terrestrial sword immortal from Wind and Snow Temple, and of course this fellow named Cui.
The tall woman nodded with a smile. "That's right."
Her true form was the old sword strip hanging beneath the stone arch bridge. As the sword spirit born from it, during the nearly ten thousand years of long waiting, she had personally witnessed the fall of the last true dragon. In that epic and tragic final battle, the great cultivators from the three teachings and various schools of thought had joined forces, yet countless still died. Their corpses fell like rain, their souls lingering without dispersing, mingling with the true dragon's posthumous fortune to eventually create the Li Pearl Cave Heaven. Yet she considered it all nothing more than children brawling, kids playing games.
This sword spirit had watched coldly from beginning to end, occasionally brightening her eyes and secretly picking up a few beautiful objects, completely unnoticed.
She had thought the rest of her life would be spent either sleeping or yawning, visualizing those magnificent ancient ruins, drifting among them like a lonely ghost—worse than a solitary spirit—just drifting along the river of time, waiting for the day her spiritual energy scattered away.
But when the Li Pearl Cave Heaven shattered, she chose Chen Ping'an as her second master. Not Ning Yao, the natural-born great sword immortal embryo. Not Ma Kuxuan, who had come from an extraordinary background. Certainly not Xie Shi, Cao Xi, or those other local geniuses born and raised in the town.
For all of this, Qi Jingchun deserved the greatest credit.
It started that night, when Qi Jingchun sat alone on the covered bridge until dawn, beneath the plaque that read "Rising Wind and Surging Water," just to persuade her to take a look at the boy from Mud Vase Alley—even just one glance.
To be honest, the sword spirit's first impression was no impression at all.
She had seen far too many wonders.
So she remained unmoved. To her, whether the Li Pearl Cave Heaven shattered and fell, or whether Heaven's Dao retaliated and the people suffered, it made no difference.
But she was indeed a little curious: why would Qi Jingchun, a scholar hailed as someone likely to establish a sect and become a patriarch, choose a child who hadn't even gone to school?
So after that day, she took a few more looks at the boy but still found nothing special.
Later, bored out of her mind, she finally remembered that before leaving, Qi Jingchun, in his capacity as the saint of the town, had intercepted a "handful of water" from the river of time in the Li Pearl Cave Heaven over the past decade or so. He had scooped it up with great divine power and placed it beneath the covered bridge.
One day, having nothing better to do—she needed to find something to occupy herself, right?—she revealed her true form and hovered over the water's surface beneath the covered bridge. While combing her hair, she observed the water.
It showed everything about the boy from Mud Vase Alley.
There were long-laid schemes with threads hidden over great distances, trivial matters of the market streets, good deeds with hidden motives, unintentional actions that caused disasters, family gossip and separations and reunions, sorrow and sincerity, life and death.
She found it quite interesting. Much more interesting than watching a bunch of kids fight and beat up a little bug.
For example, a child no bigger than a speck, carrying a basket almost as tall as himself, claiming he was going up the mountain to gather herbs, but before even climbing the mountain, he cried so loudly it was earth-shattering.
Or the child standing on a small stool, muttering to himself with a spatula in hand, saying he had to cook a delicious meal tonight—neither too salty nor too bland, just right.
Or the child running away from a candied hawthorn stall, drooling as he ran, desperately trying to imagine the taste he had tried as a little kid.
Finally, the child who, just to survive, would fish in the deep waters of the creek at noon, completely unaware that even immortals can't catch fish at midday. He got tanned blacker than charcoal.
The sword spirit knew these were hardships, but she never saw them as unbearable suffering.
Because the sword spirit had once followed her master on campaigns across the land, through seas of corpses and mountains of blood, where the remains of fallen gods piled up into mountains. The demon cores of those great demons could be strung into a skewer of candied hawthorns, crunchy and crisp to eat. The figures of external celestial demons blotted out the sky, and a single sword strike would shatter them all.
So when Qi Jingchun came to her again, she still refused to nod. But even Qi Jingchun, a sage so skilled in reasoning, was at his wit's end. He retrieved that handful of temporal water and poured it gently back into the Dragon Whisker Creek from the covered bridge. Those images flowed slowly, starting from a hurried Chen Ping'an delivering letters and ending with a child Chen Ping'an begging for his mother's good health at the Immortal Grave. At the very moment he poured the water, Qi Jingchun decided to stop trying to persuade the sword spirit.
He began walking toward one end of the covered bridge. Just when he was about to give up in disappointment, a careless remark finally slightly moved the cold-hearted sword spirit: "We are both very disappointed with this world."
The sword spirit remained motionless. As the handful of water was about to fully merge into the creek, the last scene was the child saying goodbye to his father on Mud Vase Alley: "Dad, I'm five years old now. I'm a grown-up!"
The sword spirit gazed at that retreating figure and said, "Let him walk across this covered bridge. If he can keep going, I'll consider it."
Qi Jingchun turned around in shock, then burst into hearty laughter and nodded vigorously. "I believe in Chen Ping'an. Please believe in Qi Jingchun!"
The man strode down the steps of the covered bridge, his two large sleeves swinging wildly, as if they were filled with Qi Jingchun's own youth.
The sword spirit's train of thought was interrupted by the boy's question.
The boy asked cautiously, "Since it's Teacher Qi's teacher, can we not fight?"
The sword spirit released the snow-white lotus leaf in her hand. It floated high into the sky, then instantly grew enormous, spreading far and wide to cover a vast dome of sky stretching ten miles in all directions.
She shook her head. "For Teacher Qi's sake, you must fight this battle."
Chen Ping'an scratched his head. "Although I don't know why, since it has to do with Teacher Qi and you say so, I trust you..."
He paused for a moment, his gaze firm, staring at the tall woman with a grin. "If it's a fight, then let's fight!"
She smiled knowingly, then shifted her gaze to the old man who was still stalling. He had spent ages just untying the knot on the scroll binding and was still muttering to himself.
"I used to only know how to hide in my study doing scholarly work, missing out on much. After leaving the Grove of Merit, I wanted to try things I'd never imagined before—like drinking heartily, arguing loudly with people, eating spicy food, going shirtless for a swim. I traveled through many places, saw countless famous mountains and great rivers..."
She teased him. "Literary Sage, still not done? It's just a matter of taking a cut across the neck—well, a sword cut. Dragging this out is pointless."
The old man grumbled sheepishly, "I was just waiting for you two to change your minds."
She narrowed her eyes coldly. "Old man, don't get too clever!"
The old scholar chuckled. "Old man?"
Her smile grew even gentler. "I'll remember that."
The old man seemed to adopt a "might as well" attitude. "If it's a fight, then fight. Who's afraid of who? Don't think I can't fight—I just compare it to my skill at arguing."
Finally untying the knot, the old man flicked his wrist. The scroll snapped open, spreading horizontally and slanting down toward the ground. Holding one end of the scroll, it was truly a long scroll of mountains and rivers—in an instant, it covered the ground around the well. Chen Ping'an tried to move, but the tall woman pressed his shoulder, telling him not to bother.
Bold as ever, Li Baoping simply crouched down to study it closely, poking and pointing here and there.
Young Cui Chan, standing behind the old man, held the old scholar's bag.
The old man barked, "Close!"
Back at the old well, Li Baoping, who had been crouching on the ground studying the mountains and rivers, suddenly jolted awake. The scroll spread on the ground was gone.
Moreover, her little uncle, the ill-tempered female ghost sister, and the old man who was the teacher's teacher—whom she ought to call master—had all vanished.
She looked up. The scroll had re-formed into a single roll, hovering quietly in the air.
Cui Chan was not surprised. He stood there obediently holding the bag, wearing an expression of utter despondence.
She suddenly stood up, raised the seal high, and shouted, "Hey Cui, where's my little uncle?! If you don't tell me, I'll smack you! I never know my own strength when hitting people—don't blame me if I accidentally kill you!"
Cui Chan glanced at the girl, his face indifferent. He nodded. "Go ahead. Smack me to death."
Provocation, huh?
That woman in white was bad enough. Did this bastard have to join in too?
Li Baoping was stunned for a moment, then flew into a rage. Without a word, she sprinted forward, circled behind the scroll, and despite being shorter than the boy in white, she leaped nimbly and slammed the seal down onto Cui Chan's forehead with a loud smack.
Cui Chan looked completely bewildered, his eyes dazed. He touched his even more swollen and red forehead, then suddenly dropped the bag, crouched on the ground, and buried his head in his arms, shouting, "Life's impossible! Even I can be bullied by anyone now!"
The girl felt inexplicably guilty. She hid the seal behind her back, concealing the evidence, then began studying the scroll, hoping to find a way to bring her little uncle back.
—
Chen Ping'an looked around. It was somewhat similar to when he had first been pulled into the "bottom of the water" by the sword spirit. All around was boundless nothingness, which made certain "solid objects" seem particularly real. For instance, in the distance ahead, there was a towering wall. No matter how far Chen Ping'an craned his neck, he couldn't see the wall's end.
Standing beside him, the woman in white reached up and touched the strand of black hair tied with a golden knot. She smiled. "This is both within the Landscape Scroll and within the Literary Sage's consciousness. It's complicated and troublesome to explain. Just know that here, when we draw our swords, neither of us has to worry about the consequences. That's one reason I agreed to the old man's proposal. Otherwise, we would have had to fight on that big cliff by the river."
Her other hand suddenly pressed down on Chen Ping'an's shoulder. "Right now we're too close, so you can't see the true form. I'll pull us back a bit—let's retreat eight hundred miles first."
Chen Ping'an felt as if he were traveling at lightning speed. They shot backward an immeasurable distance. When they finally stopped, the boy, ignoring his physical discomfort and the turmoil in his inner palace, gaped as he looked at "that mountain." Eight hundred miles away, even at that distance, it was still so enormous?
Compared to his hometown's Cloak Cloud Mountain, this was like comparing a tiny mound to a giant.
The tall woman's expression turned solemn. "There's another, more important reason: The Literary Sage agreed that if we fought here, you could get some special treatment."
Chen Ping'an was utterly astounded, his mouth dry. "Huh?"
She stared into the boy's eyes. "Here, when you draw your sword, you will possess a cultivation level similar to a tenth-realm qi refiner. Of course, that's an illusion, but it's an extremely real illusion. I want you to immerse yourself in it and carefully experience it. It won't be of much use to your future cultivation."
She amused herself with that last remark and couldn't help laughing. "Alright, I just want you to know one thing: don't focus solely on practicing your fists, especially if you always think you're just practicing to stay alive. That's way too unambitious. How can your ambition be so small? Think about it—who are you?"
Chen Ping'an answered blankly, "Chen Ping'an?"
Not only was that a non-answer, but who else would you be if you weren't Chen Ping'an?
She bent down and ruffled the boy's hair. "Besides being Chen Ping'an, you're also my master."
The boy felt a little embarrassed.
On the peak of the great mountain, an old man grumbled indignantly, "Oh sure, before you were all urgency, and now you're not in a hurry anymore?"
The sword spirit took a deep breath and pointed at the mountain. "That is the largest of the Five Great Mountains in the Central Plains Divine Continent."
Chen Ping'an nodded.
She looked at the distant mountain, her eyes burning. "So if a mountain blocks your path, what do you do?"
Chen Ping'an said softly, "Climb over it."
The corners of her mouth curled up; she wasn't angry. She asked again, "But if you have a sword in your hand?"
Chen Ping'an recalled the scene of using a cleaver to open a path through brush. "Cut through the mountain and keep going?"
She burst into laughter. "Right!"
The tall woman strode forward, standing in front of Chen Ping'an. She extended her two fingers together and slowly swept them from left to right in front of her.
A tiny, tiny point of light ignited at the far left.
Blazing like the sun.
Then it spread all the way to the right.
With every inch the blinding light bloomed, the tall woman's figure faded away a little more.
Finally, Chen Ping'an saw a sword without a scabbard hovering before him, as if it had been waiting for someone to pick it up for ten thousand years.
The light had dissipated.
The boy walked forward slowly and grasped the sword's hilt.
In that instant, the straw-sandaled boy felt as if heaven and earth were overturned. All his qi palaces and acupoints trembled. The air around him churned violently, nearly forcing his eyes shut.
Chen Ping'an closed his eyes and spoke with instinctive understanding: "Come along!"
The sword shrieked wildly.
Like an autumn cicada on the highest branch, crying out to heaven and earth at the top of its voice!